Why Nora Aunor? I might simply say, “Because she’s a superb actress, and a good singer.” Few will disagree with that, even the Vilmanians, and among those who disagree, it would probably be because of some class bias, as in, “Yeah yeah she’s good, but she’s so… bakya.” But precisely. Nora helped to transform the [...]
Do a Google search on “tuko” (gecko lizard) and you’ll find numerous ads from sulit.com.ph and similar online buy-and-sell exchanges. The cheapest I saw was an offer for a kilo of tuko for P15,000, supposedly with 23 pieces. The most expensive was an ad for 3 tuko at P100,000 each. One ad even had a [...]
There was a time when ownership of a cellphone by any member of the family disqualified a student from getting a University of the Philippines scholarship or subsidy. Cellphones were just too expensive. Then a market emerged for used and GSM (galing sa magnanakaw) phones, making mobile phones more accessible. Of course their quality was [...]
Filipinos and other Asians like to scoff at the western countries’ nursing homes for the aged, describing them as examples of “western materialism,” institutions where the young “dump” their parents and elderly relatives when they become too burdensome to care for. In contrast, we like to claim, we Asians are guided by filial piety, keeping [...]
With dense populations in urban areas and land prices going sky-high, there has been no way to go but up – build-up that is, with high-rise condos. And condo prices, whether for purchase or rental, are still affordable to upper and middle-classes. Should government move in with low-cost condos, alone or in partnership with the [...]
The Filipino craving for imported food, especially Stateside ones, is not unique. But it certainly is more extreme than in many other societies, maybe to the point that it has become a national obsession. Our food imports reached US$1.6 billion in 2009, with New Zealand on top of the list with $253 million worth of [...]
Sometime in 1890, Dr. A. B. Meyer, the director of a museum in Dresden, Germany, wrote Jose Rizal, asking about hashish in the Philippines. Rizal, who was in exile in Dapitan at that time, wrote back to say that there were no local names for hashish but revealed that in 1879, he himself had used [...]
As a professor and administrator at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, I am constantly amazed by the number of male faculty and students who talk to me about problems with their fathers. They don’t usually ask for advice, at least not initially, but are instead looking for anthropological explanations as to why [...]
I wonder at times if younger Filipinos are aware of this Philippine Statehood Movement that once pushed very hard to have the Philippines become the 51st state of the US. The proponents of the movement made a lot of noise and claimed that they had millions of members. They got front-page newspaper coverage, usually by [...]
A FEW months back, I talked with the director of the UP Veterinary Hospital to get his help to neuter some stray cats in my college. Because my first degree was in veterinary medicine, we went into some technical discussions and I asked about the cost of ketamine, the pre-anesthetic that we used when I [...]
“DON’T consider credit as debt; just look at it as a liability to be paid.” So goes the advice on a website offering tips on the “wise” management of credit cards. As you might have suspected, the site was set up by a credit card company. The play on words did get me thinking: how [...]
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